BettingPros PGA Show: 2026 THE PLAYERS Championship Picks & Predictions

Welcome back to the BettingPros PGA podcast. I’m Pat Fitzmaurice, here with Bo McBrayer, and we’re about to give you a betting preview of the biggest event of the PGA Tour season to date: THE PLAYERS Championship. We’re here to tell you who we’re betting, who we’re thinking about betting, who we’re definitely not betting. Let’s get into it.

THE PLAYERS Championship Preview

We’re on to THE PLAYERS Championship. This is a big one. The total purse is $25 million. The field size is traditionally 144 players, but it’s been pared down to 123 players this year.

THE PLAYERS Championship will be contested, as always, at TPC Sawgrass in the Jacksonville area. It’s a par 72 that plays to 7,352 yards, designed by Pete Dye. It opened in 1980 and has hosted THE PLAYERS Championship every year since 1982.

TPC Sawgrass isn’t very long, but trouble abounds. There is water on all but one hole on this course. Everyone listening knows about the par 3 17th with the island green – we’re not going to discuss that. Everyone knows it.

It’s part of a great three-hole finishing stretch, along with the par 5 16th, which is only 537 yards – like a long par 4 by Tour standards – but it features a green guarded by water, bunkers, and palm trees. And then you’ve got the 18th hole, a classic finisher: a 460-yard par 4 with water all down the left side. It really makes players want to bail out right – into the pine straw.

Hitting fairways is the name of the game at Sawgrass. Fairways tend to be narrow, and because there aren’t a lot of long par 4s, pros often leave driver in the bag in favor of fairway-finder tee shots. This is really a second-shot course. Precision on approach is going to be critical this week.

In past PLAYERS preview shows, we’ve talked about how important scrambling and bunker play are here. Sawgrass has all sorts of bumps and hollows around the greens, along with a lot of bunkers – many of them pot bunkers. Unless you hit a perfect shot, greens tend to repel approach shots.

And as with Bay Hill at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, we’ll get Bermuda greens again this week at Sawgrass.

The early forecast calls for temperatures in the 70s throughout the tournament. It’s going to be very breezy Thursday morning, with a likelihood of rain in the afternoon – so Thursday could be a really interesting day. I might be looking at the tee-time split and maybe favoring the afternoon guys who might get it softened up by the rain.

Breezy conditions on Friday, with winds around 15 mph and gusts close to 30. Then it should be dry on the weekend with lighter winds.

Rory McIlroy is the defending champion. He finished 12-under last year and beat J.J. Spaun in a playoff when Spaun hit his tee shot on 17 over the green, into the water and wound up making triple bogey. Scottie Scheffler won in 2023 and 2024. He won easily in 2023, finishing 17-under – five shots clear of the field. In 2024, he was 20-under and won by a single stroke over Xander Schauffele, Brian Harman, and Wyndham Clark. Cameron Smith won in 2022 at 13-under. Justin Thomas won in 2021 with a score of -14.

There is so much to consider when you handicap THE PLAYERS Championship. The market favors the favorites, of course, but a lot of times we get out-of-nowhere guys with long odds that win this tournament. It has a lot of ups and downs. Even 123 players is more than we’ve had the last couple weeks. And there are guys way down at the bottom of the board that could win. So buckle up.

Look at who does well on second and third shots, but also who can set themselves up for those shots with good off-the-tee game. It’s not about distance. It’s not even just accuracy off the tee as much as planning – because sometimes missing the fairway is better at Sawgrass if it gives you a better angle to a pin placement.

Scottie’s done better than anybody at this. He’s the best approach player in the world. Whoever can find the right spots to be in on this golf course – positioning themselves to attack pin placements – that’s what we’re looking for. If you’re out of position at Sawgrass, that’s pretty much it. You’re not going to score. You’re not going to make birdies.

Birdies are there if you play a good, solid round all the way around the bag – especially positioning off the tee to give yourself a chance to attack on approach. And if you miss your mark, you better be able to recover, because this course will eat you up around the greens. Certain guys play well here year after year, but a lot of top guys have missed cuts in their course history here because you can make crooked numbers that put you on the wrong side of the cutline really fast.

And yes – the last three years the champions have been Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler twice – but that hasn’t been the trend historically. We’ve seen winners like Tim Petrović and Stephen Ames… some real oddball winners. I got some flack for betting Cameron Smith in 2022 when he was like 60-1, and that was a nice victory for us. And 20 years before that, Craig Perks came through and won THE PLAYERS. So yeah, unlikely winners happen here.

Hard Rock Best Bets of the Week

Let’s get into our Hard Rock Best Bets for THE PLAYERS Championship.

Pat Fitzmaurice’s Hard Rock Best Bet of the Week

My Hard Rock Bet of the Week is Scottie Scheffler (+450) to win outright. Hard Rock Bet Illinois had Scottie at +450 earlier today and I couldn’t resist at that price. The man is due, and he’s had major success at TPC Sawgrass.

Pat Fitzmaurice’s THE PLAYERS Championship Picks:

• Hard Rock Best Bet of the Week: Scottie Scheffler (+450)
• Jacob Bridgeman (64-1)
• Sahith Theegala (82-1)
• Tom Hoge (310-1)
• Tom Hoge Top 10 (15-1)

I may also add a play on Min Woo Lee at around 41-1.

Bo McBrayer’s Hard Rock Best Bet of the Week

Bo McBrayer’s THE PLAYERS Championship Picks:

• Hard Rock Best Bet of the Week: Ludvig Åberg (+2450)
• Hard Rock Best Bet of the Week: Ludvig Åberg Top 10 + Scottie Scheffler Win (Parlay) (+1800)
• Scottie Scheffler (+450)
• Cameron Young (+3200)
• J.J. Spaun (+7000)
• Ricky Castillo (110-1)
• Sudarshan Yellamaraju (575-1)
• Sudarshan Yellamaraju Top 20 (+1025)

That’s all for this week’s BettingPros PGA podcast. Be sure to circle back next week for our betting preview of the final leg of the Florida Swing, the Valspar Championship. Until then, so long, everyone.